Chandrapur district Cong president resigns

Chandrapur: District Congress
president, Vinayak Bangade, on Saturday resigned from his post
citing "discrimination" in allotting party tickets for the
April 15 polls to the municipal corporation.

"It is indeed a painful decision to quit the party
post that was entrusted to me since last 14 years. But, I am
forced to take this hard decision as I felt that there is no
more respect for loyalty and sincerity in the party. Even, a
demand for the tickets to 4-5 loyal Congress candidates was
turned down despite earnest requests during the meeting at
Mumbai in presence of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan,
Guardian Minister Sanjay Deotale, MLC Jainuddin Zaveri and
other Congress leaders," he told reporters at a press
conference here.

Even the procedure for issuing the AB Form was not
followed. Party Observers, Pramila Kunte and Marutrao
Kumbhalkar who were supposed to visit Chandrapur to issue the
form individually, distributed the forms then and there only
and two of the candidates namely, Nandu Nagarkar and Subhash
Gaur were summoned to Nagpur to collect AB Forms which
is not in accordance with the actual norms, he said.

He accused senior leaders like Naresh Pugalia, without
naming him, of "autocratic" style of functioning.

I would not resort to any kind of anti-party
activities and not hamper the part`s prospects in the coming
polls, he added.

Bangade clarified that he was not quitting the party,
and has sent his resignation to MPCC President Manikrao
Thakare with a copy to party president Sonia Gandhi and AICC
general secretary Mukul Wasnik.

Meanwhile, district Congress chief for Minority Cell,
Sayyad Abid Ali, has also put down his papers in support of
Bangade.